


Daylight

by vands38



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Closeted Geralt, Geralt makes the first move, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queer Themes, Secret Relationship, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, it all started with a Bro Job, this got really sad and I am NOT OKAY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:42:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vands38/pseuds/vands38
Summary: for years, Geralt and Jaskier have loved each other in darkness, never daring to bring their love into the light
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 32
Kudos: 217





	Daylight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlooodyMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlooodyMoon/gifts).



> for the prompt: Established Secret Relationship Geraskier dealing with Canon-Typical Homophobia. It’s really hard sometimes but they still manage to find opportunities to be soft to each other.
> 
> content warnings: a bucketload of homophobia including archaic language (not the f-word), internalised homophobia and institutionalised homophobia – detailed description of the murder of queer people – brief sexual activity with OCs – voyeurism – sexual activity under the influence of alcohol – threat of violence
> 
> thank you so much for the prompt blooodymoon. this just, like, fell out of me in a couple of hours along with a good amount of tears. enjoy???

I.

The music is terrible, Jaskier muses. One of the strings on the lute is flat and it makes the entire ensemble sound sad and maudlin even as they attempt to play a jig. The nobles don’t seem to have noticed though; their choreographed steps are as pristine as ever as they weave in and out of their lines with uniform rigidity. He used to enjoy the routine – the peacocking and the praise, the food and the wine. He sees two youngsters sneaking out the back door and remembers that he used to enjoy that too.

Geralt grunts beside him as the Baron goes on and on about the ‘inverts’ in his town and how he sees fit to punish them. He describes the smell of burnt flesh and the sound of their screams before they suffocated. How the two ‘perverts’ would reach for each other even with hands bound and their fingers shrivelled with the flames. How they would declare their ‘unnatural’ love for each other even then. 

Jaskier pushes the half-eaten pork around his plate with his fork, pretending he’s still hungry, as the Baron spits venom between the mouthfuls of flesh. He sees Geralt’s fingers twitch under the banquet table; his jaw locked tight in anger.

Jaskier entertains a fantasy where Geralt challenges the man, where he says, “they know more about love than you ever shall,” where he reaches for his sword and runs the Baron clean through, where they march to the prison and free every sodomite in its cells.

He won’t though.

He never does.

“There are worse crimes,” Geralt says diplomatically, and that’s it, that’s all he can do, as the Baron switches to talk of witches instead.

-

“I’m sorry,” Geralt whispers to him as soon as they are behind closed doors.

Jaskier cannot stay long. The guards believe he accompanied Geralt to his chambers to remove and polish his armour, as a squire would a knight. He will not be able to stay, as much as he would like to.

He wants to say ‘it’s okay’ but it’s _not_. It will never be okay. “It’s not your fault,” he says instead, and instinctively follows through on the charade, reaching to unbuckle Geralt’s breast plate.

Geralt gently halts his fingers by cupping his hands in his own. “I could have challenged him.”

Jaskier leans down to lovingly brush his lips over the scarred flesh of his knuckles before bringing their conjoined hands towards him to rest against his own chest. “And what would it have served? A death sentence. A broken reputation. The loss of your coin, at the very least.”

Geralt shakes his head. “I don’t care about the coin.”

Jaskier laughs and knocks his hands away, diligently returning to his task. “Yes, you do, you lying sod. It’s near six hundred crowns he owes you.”

“It’s not enough,” Geralt interjects, passively assisting Jaskier with the armour. “It will never be enough.”

Jaskier frowns, leaning down to unlace Geralt’s boots. “Enough for what?” he asks when he’s done.

Geralt gently places two fingers on his chin and encourages him to stand. He does so, until they are equal, and Jaskier can look into the golden eyes that he fell in love with so long ago. “For what it _does_ to you.”

Frightfully, this declaration brings tears to his eyes. Geralt’s expression turns even more sympathetic, gently wiping away the stray tear that falls.

“I wish you’d never have to hear such hateful words. Better yet, I wish that they’d never thought them.”

Jaskier chortles at the idea that such a future could ever possibly exist; with the vitriol he witnesses towards their kind every day it doesn’t seem possible that anyone could ever speak kindly of queers. One night, some years ago, they had made a wish that it would be better for people like them in the future but sometimes Jaskier doesn’t know how it could ever be so.

Jaskier turns his head and presses a kiss into Geralt’s open palm, exhaling his melancholy in a sigh. “I do not care what they think of us,” he admits softly, “as long as you think us _well_.”

Geralt’s lips tick up into a cautious smile. “You know I do.”

“Well then,” Jaskier says, urging Geralt to step out of his unlaced boots so he can take him fully in his arms. “I believe you owe me a dance.”

II.

When they had first started sharing bedrolls under the stars, Jaskier didn’t think anything of it. He knew it was ‘unnatural’ and that he could never marry a man in the same way he could a woman, but it was just some relief between comrades, a shared hand some nights when the brothels wouldn’t take them, and it was nothing. It _meant_ nothing.

Until, one night, Geralt kissed him.

-

Jaskier stops him with a hand on his chest. They had been rutting in their nightclothes, squeezed together under a single blanket as they’d worked off the frustration of a summer’s heat, but then, suddenly, there were lips on his. Warm. Deep. Exhilarating. _Terrifying_.

Now it is Geralt who looks terrified as he stares back down at Jaskier, as if only now realising his mistake. Spittle sticks to his lips, shining bright in the moonlight. Jaskier is fixated. His heart is pounding.

He pushes against the firm chest. “What are you doing?” Jaskier accuses, straightening his shirt as he scrambles out from beneath the Witcher.

Geralt doesn’t give much of a fight as Jaskier escapes. He looks speechless, in fact; his face frozen in surprise as he kneels on the bedroll where Jaskier left him.

Jaskier crouches nearby; torn between running from this nightmare scenario and confronting the crime. “I’m not queer,” he defends. “I don’t _do_ that. I’m not some sick perverted freak, alright?”

“Alright,” Geralt says. The Witcher closes his eyes. He looks pained. “Hmm. Sorry. I –”

Then his jaw clamps shut, like he genuinely can’t think of anything to follow that. He looks away, to the side, and Jaskier sees the tension written in the lines of his face.

“Fuck,” Jaskier says, falling back on his heels as a revelation occurs to him. “Are _you_ –?”

A storm crosses Geralt’s face too fast for Jaskier to track. He throws off the blanket, grabs his discarded shirt with averted eyes, and stalks into the night.

“Geralt?” he asks, but the dark forest just rustles her leaves in response, the Witcher long since disappeared.

-

Jaskier sleeps fitfully that night and wakes the morning to a doused fire, an empty clearing, and his satchel and lute case stacked neatly beside his bedroll. Jaskier growls as he stumbles to his feet and yells his frustration to the forest as he kicks a stray rock as far as it will go. “Fuck you, Witcher! Fuck you!” he screams, and the forest screams back.

-

“Leshen!” Jaskier gasps with a finger pointed behind him as he stumbles into the village pub, panting and sweating, and marked with a hundred different abrasions across his skin. “There’s a –” he collapses against the doorway, still vaguely pointing and gasping, “– leshen. Forest. Big. Mad. Very mad. Possibly at me? Probably at me. I told it to fuck off. Is there a –” he flails his arms, trying to recall the word that he purposefully banished from his mind that morning, “– a Witcher here? Someplace? Maybe?”

He hears the hurried movement of wood against floorboards and heavy footsteps and then there are golden eyes and white hair bearing down on him.

“Oh good, it’s you,” Jaskier slurs, not entirely sure if he means it or not.

There’s a furrow on the Witcher’s brow and then warm hands are cupping his elbows, easing his panic and grounding his fears. “Jaskier,” he rasps, and if Jaskier didn’t know any better, he’d say that he sounded _concerned_. “Are you alright?”

Jaskier flails his arms with wide eyes, gesturing vaguely to the deadly beast in the distant forest. “Leshen,” he states with exasperation. No one seems nearly distressed enough for his liking.

Geralt smirks. “You’re fine,” he concludes, grasping Jaskier’s shoulder in a gesture that’s probably meant to be comforting but just makes Jaskier crumple under the unexpected weight. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I can’t pay,” Jaskier adds belatedly as Geralt turns towards the door.

“I know, bard. I don’t expect you to.” He tilts his head, examining him. “Consider it an apology.”

Jaskier licks his lips, rendered mute for the first time in their acquaintance. He nods his head. “I’ll be here. When you get back.”

Geralt nods, seemingly accepting the terms.

-

Jaskier buys him a pint upon his return. They sit at the bar in silence, the mood not light enough for a celebration but not heavy enough for an apology.

“I don’t mind,” Jaskier says eventually. “That you’re… that way. I don’t mind exactly. You just took me by surprise is all.”

Geralt grunts and swigs his ale.

Jaskier studies his unnatural hair and unnatural eyes and unnatural strength and reasons that he really ought to have expected his other unnatural qualities. Humans already consider the Witcher to be a freak. He supposes Geralt has nothing more to lose by embracing his perversion. Perhaps Geralt’s twisted desire is just another trait that others see as monstrous simply because they do not see another way. The kiss wasn’t abhorrent, Jaskier muses, it didn’t _feel_ unnatural.

“You’re not a freak,” Jaskier says, with a cautious glance towards his companion. “Whatever they say. You’re my… well, you’re my friend.”

Geralt catches his eye, briefly, before looking away. He clears his throat and takes another swig of ale before the empty vessel is returned to the bar with a clink. “Thanks. For the drink.”

Jaskier nods and empties his own flagon of mead. It seems to be apology enough.

III.

It’s Belleteyn and they’re pissed on cheap mead. The villagers are in various states of undress, skipping over the communal fire, and fornicating in dark corners, and every time a woman slides onto Jaskier’s lap and kisses him deeply and moves his hand beneath her open blouse to caress her breasts, all he can think about is another kiss a year or more ago. A kiss under starlight, clumsy and accidental, the shining spittle on lips and the stunned look on Geralt’s face that Jaskier is more and more convinced is heartbreak.

He lifts his lips from Tilda’s ample bosom to glance across the campfire at his companion only to find Geralt’s gaze already pinned on him. The Witcher has a lap full of women too; one lounges beside him with her lips suckling on his neck, and the other straddles his hips, her red hair flowing across his chest as she rocks on the fingers that have slipped beneath her dress.

The sounds she makes – high-pitched keening sounds and little wordless whimpers – travel straight to Jaskier’s cock and he remembers – _fuck_ , does he remember – how those sword callouses felt against his own skin.

The mead dampens the fear that normally takes hold and all he can feel is _desire_. Not for the woman who is currently cupping his hardness through his tight pants, eager and willing, but for _Geralt_.

He swears and clumsily extracts himself from the proceedings. He mumbles his excuses to the disappointed maiden as he stumbles into a back alley and rapidly takes himself in hand to the thought of Geralt touching him like that, Geralt’s lips against his neck... and his mouth... and his cock –

Jaskier spills with a shout, surprised at how soon the fantasy brought him relief, and then his face slackens with fear when he spies a familiar silhouette at the end of the alley.

For a moment, they both freeze. Jaskier with his softening cock in hand and Geralt lurking in the shadows with piercing golden eyes fixed on the sight.

Then, Geralt steps forward under the light of a torch and Jaskier can see the swell of his arousal and the inviting way that his tongue comes to lick at his lips. Jaskier's heart pounds in his throat, aching and wanting. 

“Kiss me,” Jaskier gasps, before he can think better of it. “Kiss me again.”

He hears Geralt growl and then he’s stalking towards him faster than he had left that first day. His hands come to brace on the wall beside him, leaning ever closer, and then he stops – “You’re drunk.”

“I don’t care,” Jaskier whines petulantly, because he knows he could never do this sober. Before his mind can take back control of his body, he tangles his fingers in Geralt’s hair and pushes their lips together.

Geralt groans into the movement and then he kisses him – deep, and chaotic, and possessive. His hands come to grip his hips. His hardness ruts against Jaskier’s thigh. Jaskier finds his own hands pushing down the barrier between them and taking Geralt in hand. Everything is hot and heady and brighter than the fire of Belleteyn itself. The act itself feels familiar, like it used to, but this time Geralt is _kissing_ him and it’s intoxicating and addictive and everything that Jaskier shouldn’t want.

Geralt comes with a strangled moan, his hips still bucking even after he’s spent, like he can’t quite let go of the moment.

Jaskier waits until his movements have ceased, and then, summoning every bit of courage stolen from cheap mead, he tilts his head and kisses him again – softly, curiously, with intent.

Geralt sighs against his lips. His fingers loosen and slide to Jaskier’s waist, and for a moment everything feels good and soft and like it’s going to be okay.

“Oi! Freaks!”

Geralt swears and jumps back, yanking up his trousers and beginning to retreat in the very same movement. Jaskier follows suit, beginning to stumble down the alley after Geralt, but their assailant isn’t far behind –

“Oi! I saw you! You filthy sodomites!”

His voice is loud enough to attract other bellows of protest as the man continues to lumber after them. Geralt reaches back and grasps Jaskier’s hand, pulling him up and over the edge of a building and steadying him over the rooftop. Below them, Jaskier glimpses lit torches and the shouts of men coordinating an attack. Their words are becoming more vile and their threats more detailed.

Jaskier tries to block it out. He wants to scream that he’s not one of them. He’s not a queer. He’s not a freak. He’s not…

But Geralt’s hand is tight in his. Warm and comforting, like Geralt’s presence always is.

He can’t argue back, Jaskier realises, he can’t say it isn’t true. He kissed Geralt and it felt _right_.

Hot salty tears begin to slip down his face as he hears those hateful words that he’s heard all his life and for the first time realises _it’s me; they’re talking about me._

-

They finally rest at sunrise, when they find an abandoned hut miles from civilisation. Jaskier watches thoughtfully as Geralt untacks Roach and numbly goes through their nighttime routine with a heavy silence on his shoulders. _Geralt has heard those vile things his whole life_ , _and he’s still here_. Jaskier remembers their first kiss and what he said afterwards; how it echoed the very words that were hurled at them tonight. He wonders if he had hurt Geralt as much as he is hurting now, or if, after a while, their words don’t even penetrate anymore.

Geralt comes to sit beside him in the old wreck of a bed and Jaskier sleepily tugs at his sleeve urging him to lie down beside him. He does, and Geralt’s hand awkwardly comes to rest over the flat of his stomach.

“We don’t have to do this,” Geralt murmurs some time later. “It’s shit. All the time. I understand if you –”

But Jaskier silences him with two fingers pressed against his lips. He leans up on his elbow to look at him fully and takes in the furrowed brow and the darkened eyes before cupping that troubled face in his hands. It must always hurt, he concludes, because he can see it written clearly before him.

Jaskier could fall into this misery himself but instead he does as he always does, because he’s a bard and his job is to brighten the world with his presence. He arranges his face into a smile – one that must be semi-successful going by Geralt’s confused brow – before leaning closer and hovering his face only inches above the Witcher’s.

“It can’t be shit ‘all the time’, surely?” he asks, widening his smile, before he closes the space between them. The kiss is gentle and light, tainted with exhaustion and his own fear of rejection.

But he needn’t have feared. Geralt breaks the kiss with a cautious smile, threading his fingers through Jaskier’s hair with quiet wonder; his gaze flickering across his face like it’s a marvel. “Not all the time,” he acquiesces.

Jaskier feels relief and happiness surge through his exhausted body at the acceptance between them. They trade gentle kisses until their lips turn to sleep and when they wake, Geralt merely kisses him again, eyes bright and lips chaste, and Jaskier wonders if Geralt, for all his queer desires, has ever had _this_ before.

IV.

“I love you,” Jaskier says unthinkingly, the words falling from his lips at the sight of lute strings in Geralt’s hands.

Geralt smiles in that secret little way of his, the way that makes Jaskier’s heart flutter and his stomach churn because it’s his, it’s _just_ his, but then, before Geralt can speak, there is a man appearing at the open door behind him, clasping Geralt’s shoulder – “Are you done delivering gifts to your queer little bard, Witcher? We’ve got work to be doing.”

Jaskier watches as the soft, gentle, man before him vanishes behind a thick wall of indifference, and Jaskier has to swallow the sudden acidity at the back of his throat.

Geralt grunts and nods his assent towards the lord, grabbing his swords from the entryway and turning to leave. When the lord disappears with a disapproving huff, Geralt hesitates in the doorway, his fingers flexing over the straps of his bags. “You too,” he whispers to Jaskier, his eyes flickering towards him to reveal the smallest glimpse of _Geralt_ peeking through behind the iron fortress.

Jaskier nods. It’s enough. It will have to be enough.

V.

Most of the time, he’s fine. Most of the time, he’s so happy in Geralt’s arms that he can dismiss the cruel words and forget what he doesn’t have and get on _just fine_.

But then, it’s his sister’s wedding and he watches as she declares her love for her husband in front of a hundred people and he hates that the only emotion he feels is _jealousy_.

He used to experience a thrill every time he snuck away with Geralt. It used to be fun and exhilarating; something daring when life got too dull. But over the years, the secrecy has eaten away at them.

He wants to be able to hold his lover’s hand. He wants to be able to share a room without an alibi. He wants to dance with him, and kiss him, and be with him, in the way that everyone else is allowed to be. He wants to enter the Witchers’ keep with Geralt’s hand in his and not fear their rejection. He wants to marry his Witcher at his family estate and sew his name on the family tree where it belongs. He’s so sick of the lie and the way it devalues their love. He’s so tired of the words he hears day in and day out from people too ignorant to understand. He wants respect. They _deserve_ respect.

Jaskier excuses himself as soon as he’s able, storming away from the stifling interior and into the empty gardens.

“It’s not fair,” he states when he hears Geralt’s footsteps behind him. Jaskier’s arms are folded protectively across his chest, his hands occasionally rising to angrily swipe tears from his cheeks. It’s such bullshit. Utter bullshit.

Geralt’s hand rests on Jaskier’s shoulder and Jaskier resents how that simple touch already makes him feel so much better. He’s mad. He wants to _stay_ mad. “I know,” Geralt whispers.

He knows Geralt can’t comfort him further while under the keen eyes of the guests but he yearns for it nevertheless. He wishes Geralt would take him in his arms, consequences be damned.

“You are my husband,” Geralt states.

Jaskier smiles through the tears. They have no rings, or papers, or vows. But they _are_ married; he feels it in his bones.

He reaches up to cover Geralt’s hand in his, uncaring if there are prying eyes. “I know,” he says softly, squeezing his hand.

“And for every dance you miss, every touch you crave, every kiss you deserve… I will give them all to you behind closed doors. You know this.”

Jaskier nods, the tears of distress steadily becoming something else. He laughs as he remembers something from a decade or more ago. “Right. Like we said. It’s not shit –”

“– not all the time,” Geralt recalls with a wry smile.

Jaskier smiles and holds onto the memory of all that they are; all the kindness and affection that Geralt bestows on him when there is no one else around. He is privileged to see it, and to know the Witcher in all the ways he has come to know him. The cost of their secrecy, in comparison, is worth it. Always worth it.

The door behind them opens into the night, bringing with it laughter and music and a painful reminder of the outside world. Jaskier drops his hand. Geralt retreats. And they stand, side by side, looking out into the night.

“One day,” Geralt says, “they will see us. One day we will be in the light.”

Jaskier clings to the hope as desperately as Geralt as he takes his hand under the cover of night. He does not speak of _them_ , Jaskier knows, but of _future_ them; the people that will follow in their footsteps long after they have passed. “I hope you’re right, my love. I hope that one day we will love in the light.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading folks, I'm on [tumblr](https://vands38.tumblr.com/) if you want to scream at me on another platform


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